NHS Services (Access)

James Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I will not.

The Secretary of State now claims that his reorganisation is saving £1 billion a year, but the truth is that that is a fantasy figure. The reorganisation, which cost £3 billion and counting, turned the 163 NHS organisations into 440 separate administrations with their own running costs. It introduced a new competition regime that is eating up tens of millions of pounds of NHS money. Perhaps that is why Kieran Walshe, professor of health policy at Manchester business school, said:

“I haven’t found anybody who thinks that this reorganisation has made the NHS more efficient and more productive… and I don’t think you find many people who think that the new system costs any less to run.”

The Secretary of State needs to clear this up today. Either he publishes the independent analysis that he claims supports his figure of £1 billion, or he stops making a claim that is simply not credible.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

I thought that this debate was about access to services. One thing that the right hon. Gentleman has not mentioned is mental health services. One of this Government’s achievements is that 100,000 more people are getting access to psychological therapies than under the previous Government, and last week the Government announced for the first time access standards and waiting time targets for mental health services, which were never in place in the 13 years of the Labour Government.

[Andy Burnham]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is wrong, because I mentioned the cuts to mental health services earlier in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones). The talking therapies he mentioned were introduced by the previous Government —indeed by me—and in some places they are not being cut, which I am pleased about, but in others they are. The letter I referred to from the royal colleges and other organisations talked about a crisis in mental health. They say that people are being ferried hundreds of miles to find emergency beds. That is the reality on this Government’s watch. I think that a little less complacency and a little more focus on these problems would not go amiss.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Speaker, in this debate about access to services.

I share one thing in common with the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), which is that I am from Leigh, as we both know. I am still under a specialist in Leigh, whom I have seen on many occasions. I have never had to wait and it has always been on time. I have seen specialists across at Tommy’s—St Thomas’s—without ever having to wait and always on time. I have also seen specialists in Lancaster without ever having to wait and always on time. I have heard all the stories about waiting lists and delays, but I personally have not experienced that. My family in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where they still live, have not experienced it either. When my mother was leaving this world, shall we say, she had exemplary care from the local health trust. There was never any talk among the health professionals of cuts. They did not know who I was; I was just another person who was losing their mother.

I do not like to be tribal. The right hon. Gentleman and I have had terse words in the past, but I will say this on the record in the House: he is a good man and an honourable gentleman. I have friends who have voted for him. He is very well-regarded in his constituency. But what upsets me—I do not want to change the tone of this debate—is that in my constituency the Labour party is campaigning on the basis of an erroneous agenda of cuts, hospital closures and A and E closures that have never happened and are not going to happen. I received an e-mail today from a constituent who is absolutely terrified that the local Royal Lancaster infirmary is going to close, but it is not. There is no suggestion of it closing. In fact, I have spoken to the chief executive and she said, “I don’t know where this has come from.”

We are in the run-up to a general election and it is the silly season—that is evident to everyone inside and outside the Chamber—but it does no service to anybody in the political world, never mind the Opposition, if candidates up and down the country are going to fight about cuts and closures to the health service that are not even happening in certain areas. That will certainly not play into the hands of an incoming Government.

In my constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale, £25 million has been spent recently on a new health centre. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) opened a walk-in centre recently. We have been allocated £150 million to improve the local trust, most of which will be spent on the Royal Lancaster infirmary, which has four new hospital wards, and we have just received £2 million for GP access at the weekend. Two weeks ago, I opened a new mental health facility in my constituency.

Morecambe and Lunesdale has never seen so much investment in the NHS, yet the Labour party in my area says that everything is going to hell in a handcart and the hospital is closing down, but that is wrong. The RLI is not going to close, and neither was the hospital serving Corby, which the hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) campaigned on.

[James Morris]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. In my constituency, there has been millions of pounds of new investment in the Rowley Regis hospital, which was under threat under the previous Government when all its in-patient wards were closed. The recent sign-off on a £350 million new integrated hospital in Smethwick in Sandwell, one of the most deprived areas in the country, will substantially benefit the population’s health care and also help regenerate the economy.

[David Morris]

I thank my hon. Friend and namesake for making that point.

I am passionate about the NHS and I know that the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Leigh are also passionate about it, but we should get a grip on reality. Campaigns are saying that £25 million is being cut from the local trust when £150 million has been invested in it, so the maths do not stack up. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has said, we have been horse-trading figures, but we have to look at the reality of the situation. Scaremongering is not the way forward, because all it does is alienate the electorate, my constituents and the people we all live with across the nation and put fear into the services that we are trying to protect.

I am facing a third erroneous campaign on health cuts in my constituency, and my mail box is always full every time there is such a campaign. All it seeks to do is frighten the electorate, but it does not frighten me, because the electorate know the truth.